19世纪的美国家庭生活

Family Life, 19th-Century Families

Only in the late 18th and early 19th centuries did ideas of affectionate marriages and loving, sentimental relations with children become dominant in American family life. These attitudes first took hold among the urban, educated wealthy and middle classes, and later spread to rural and poorer Americans. This change was due to the growth and increasing sophistication of the economy, which meant that economic issues became less pressing for families and production moved outside the home to specialized shops and factories. With more leisure time and greater physical comfort, people felt that happiness, rather than simple survival, was possible. English philosopher John Locke’s theory that human beings are born good, wi th their minds as blank slates, contrasted with traditional Christian beliefs that children were sinful by nature. If this blank-slate theory is correct, then goodness can be instilled in children by showering them with kindness and love and by shielding them from the bad things in this world.

Additionally, the psychological theory of sensibility, another 18th-century idea, argued that positive feelings such as friendship, happiness, sympathy, and empathy should be cultivated for a civil life of reason. By the 19th century, romanticism and sentimentality put even more emphasis on emotional attachment and the cultivation of feeling. New ideas about human equality and liberty undermined older notions of hierarchy and order. Americans applied the political ideal of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” espoused in the Declaration of Independence to family life. Husbands were to rule, but with affection and with their wives’ interests at heart. Wives obeyed, not out of force, but out of love. Parents sought the affection of their children, not their economic contributions. This was the new ideal, but old habits died slowly. Authority, inequality, and violence declined but never entirely disappeared.

By the end of the 18th century and into the 19th century, marriage was undertaken for affection, not for economic reasons. Courtship became more elaborate and couples had more freedom. They attended dances, church socials, picnics, and concerts, and got to know one another well. After the wedding, couples went on honeymoons to have a romantic interlude before settling down to daily life. Raising children became the most important job a wife performed, and children were to be loved and sheltered. Physical punishment of children did not disappear, but it became more moderate and was combined with encouragement and rewards.

Servants, apprentices, and others gradually dropped out of the definition of family. Servants no longer slept within the same house as the family, and apprentices rented rooms elsewhere. By the 19th century, the nuclear family, consisting of a father and mother and their dependent children, had become the model. The ideal, loving family could be found in magazines, poems, and religious tracts. Novels promoted romantic courtship and warned readers of insincere fortune hunters or seducers when seeking a husband or wife. Love and sincerity were advocated. Still, economic considerations did not entirely disappear. Wealthy women married wealthy men; poorer men married poorer women.

The economic transformations of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century brought about further changes in men’s and women's roles. Work was less likely to be done in the home, as